$ -- 'II_æiI .- 1 I _ << I I'.) J, \ : ì I / D ., -t\ \ / I , _ -.. 'W>> Lr jJ ....... - -1' j tI :, r (.....t n "'^ { ./ -- .... . """"'- ' fi .L ( __ ..'., ," , , f ':', , (:",., ,', , (Z ' - l;/:':;. m'" w j,f i"\ "1!! '''"'- m'. ' 'J -' "><i; ' \:1 19 -...- ) : l "" '" '\ r ""'- :1:'" '" -mt'f . = . f t' l -- ...........- -.. .<< " r l \. fi'ø", r ..j .1 þ t , ,1 to. \ ' - ' \ .....- - - , i" ';;'" . , ,,---, t -\' \ , L .!, . I . '-"" ('Call in the family, Nurse McIntyre. I think he's about to process his last words." porting books, libraries, publishing. When I became Minister, France still had the most backward library system in Europe. It has improved since then. And I've given more attention to jazz, architecture, fashion. But I can do only so much. Everything equals cul- ture, even when you aren't aware of it. When you buy a record, the choice you make is a cultural act. The way you dress, what you eat-even when you pay no attention to them, these are statements. Every citizen must take re- sponsibility for culture." M. Lang headed for his .Concorde flight, due in Paris at 10:45 P.M., and we asked if he had plans for the eve- ning once he got back. "Perhaps I will go to have some oysters," he said, smoothing his tie. "I don't like to go straight home. I like to get the feel of the city." Relentless and Absolute G RIDLOCK-the vehicular chaos that develops at mid-Manhattan street intersections when cars, trucks, and buses become caught in an immov- . . able embrace-is the nightmare that haunts our city's Department of Transportation from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day. Gridlock is pro- duced by spillback (vehicles stranded across an intersection, blocking on- coming traffic), and unchecked grid- lock can, according to the domino theory of automotive responsibility, cause pedlock, a motionless mosaic of people and cars, such as can be seen in the streets around Rockefeller Cen- ter during the holidays. We picked up these nuggets of transportation lore during a recent visit with Samuel Schwartz, a tall, thin, bearded engi- neer in his mid-thirties, who is the city's deputy transport commissioner for traffic operations and a passionate advocate of mass transit. Mr. Schwartz invited us to spend the morning with him on December 14th, a Friday and the first Gridlock Alert day of the holiday period, to observe how the city had mobilized its various forces-five hundred traffic agents, three hundred traffic police, and sixty-five tow trucks -to keep things moving in midtown Manhattan between Thirty-fourth and Sixtieth Streets. (That day was chosen because a computer had concluded that the two Fridays before Christmas were among the heaviest days of the year.) We met Mr Schwartz at seven-forty- five on a misty morning at Floyd Ben- nett Field, where he was preparing to survey the incoming commuter traffic from a police helicopter. "I want to see how much backup there is in the major facilities serving Manhattan-tunnels, the East River bridges, the major parkways," he told us. "If the queues are unusually long and slow-moving, I'll know we're in for trouble later on in the city. Normally, eight hun- dred thousand vehicles are in Manhat- tan each day. Today-although we've been urging the public to use mass transportation-we could get an addi- tional hundred and forty thousand. If we have nine hundred and forty thou- sand vehicles clogging the Manhattan grid, we could have a grid resembling the transit-strike days." We hopped into a seat beside Mr. Schwartz and watched as he hooked up his communications system-green headphones to monitor police frequen-